As part of a nationwide, multi-agency telemarketing sweep called "Senior
Sentinel," the Federal Trade Commission has brought charges in federal
district courts against five telemarketers who preyed on senior
citizens. Project Senior Sentinel, coordinated by the Department of
Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is aimed primarily at
bringing criminal charges against telemarketers who defraud the elderly,
and culminated in hundreds of arrests and indictments across the
country.

"Telemarketing fraud costs consumers $40 billion dollars each year, and
many of the scams target the elderly in particular," said Jodie
Bernstein, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The
FTC's involvement in Project Senior Sentinel follows extensive FTC law
enforcement and regulatory efforts and is the most massive effort of its
type. It stands a great chance of success in reducing those losses
because it focuses the resources of several consumer protection law
enforcement agencies on the most callous breed of scam artists." "The
FTC role was three-fold." Bernstein said. "We provided key information
about victims from a national database on telemarketing fraud; we
provided funding in support of a library of audio-taped evidence of
fraudulent telemarketing schemes in action; and we brought the civil
actions announced today and assisted the Justice Department in the
filing of several other cases brought under Project Senior Sentinel."

The FTC's largest contribution to the Senior Sentinel project was to
provide information from the National Association of Attorneys
General/FTC Telemarketing Complaint System. The FTC/NAAG database is
designed to help the more than 90 law enforcement organizations now
participating to identify consumer victims of telemarketing fraud and to
coordinate the prosecution of fraudulent telemarketers. The information
can be used to target the worst law violators, identify law enforcement
agencies that have opened investigations, and gather information on
companies under investigation. The FTC supplied criminal authorities
with information from several hundred complainants who lost money to
various targets of the takedown.

Four of the five FTC civil cases under Senior Sentinel involve
fraudulent promotions of prizes or awards. In each case, the
telemarketers promised consumers valuable prizes or awards that
allegedly were never delivered or, if delivered, were worth a fraction
of their claimed value. The fifth case involves a "recovery room," where
the defendants are charged with falsely claiming that they will recover
most, if not all, of the money that consumers have previously lost to
other fraudulent telemarketers.

The FTC's complaints in the five cases were filed under seal this week
and last. Seals have now been lifted on cases against:

1. Desert Financial Group, based in Las Vegas, and its President,
Keith Parker; 2. EDJ Telecommunications, Inc., doing business as
International Marketing, based in Las Vegas, and its officers, David
Ramos and Judy Burr; 3. Ideal Concepts, Inc.,based in Beverly Hills,
California, and its President, Michael Garganese; and 4. Total Care,
Inc., based in Los Angeles, California, and its President Irwin Gonor.
5. The fifth case is still under seal.

In addition to imposing temporary restraining orders prohibiting the
challenged deceptive practices, the courts in these cases have
temporarily frozen the defendants' assets to preserve funds for consumer
redress. The FTC is seeking permanent injunctions against the
defendants' deceptive practices.

According to the FTC, the defendants in the prize-promotion cases made
unsolicited telephone calls to consumers nationwide, many of whom are
senior citizens. In these calls, the defendants allegedly told consumers
that they will receive, or had been selected to receive, a valuable
prize or award, such as a new car or a large sum of money. The
defendants then told consumers that in order to receive the prize or
award they had to:

* purchase certain products from them such as publications,
perfumes, bath and beauty products, or other merchandise; or *
participate in a "Say No To Drugs" program by buying items such as pen
and pencil sets, calendars, caps, or frisbees.

Consumers typically paid from $398 to as much as $4,000 for these
products. In many instances, according to the FTC, the defendants
misrepresented to consumers that the value of the prize or award they
were to receive was worth significantly more than what they were paying
for the products. In fact, according to the FTC, the prizes, if
received, had little or no value at all.

In the Desert Financial case, the defendants allegedly told consumers,
again, many of whom are senior citizens, that for an upfront fee, they
could recover all or most of the money the consumers had lost to other
telemarketing companies. In fact, according to the FTC, in most or all
instances, consumers recovered little, if any, money from the
defendants' efforts.

The Commission vote to file the complaints was 5-0. The complaint
against Desert Financial was filed under seal in the U.S. District Court
for the District of Nevada, in Las Vegas, on Dec. 5, 1995. The complaint
against EDJ Telecommunications was filed under seal in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Nevada on Nov. 28, 1995. The complaints
against Ideal Concepts and Total Care were filed under seal in the U.S.
District Court for the Central District of California, in Los Angeles,
on Dec. 5 and Dec. 1, respectively.

The Commission received assistance from numerous law enforcement
agencies in these matters, including: the U.S. Attorneys' Offices in Las
Vegas and San Antonio; the Federal Bureau of Investigation's offices in
Chattanooga, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York City, and San Diego;
the Attorneys General Offices in California, Iowa, Nevada, and Texas;
the Los Angeles Police Department; and the Texas Secretary of State's
Office. The Commission would like particularly to acknowledge the
contributions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Las Vegas and
the San Diego Boiler Room Task Force.

The matters are being handled by the FTC's Denver, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco Regional Offices and its Division of Service Industry
Practices in Washington, D.C.

NOTE: The Commission files a complaint when it has "reason to believe"
that the law has been or is being violated, and it appears to the
Commission that a proceeding is in the public interest. The complaint is
not a finding or ruling that the defendants have actually violated the
law. These cases will be decided by the court.

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